Written by

Elizabeth Courtney

For the Free Press

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There are those today who say that civilized life on Earth is “toast” — that we’ve gone too far with our over-consuming, resource-depleting lifestyles. They say we’ve squandered the very stuff our lives depend on: fertile land, clean water and fresh air. They say we have burned too much oil, that 393 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is too much for the human race to survive in the long haul. They believe the Earth has a finite carrying capacity that humanity has ignored and now, exceeded.

As for me, I believe we can learn to live within our ecological limits. Don’t get me wrong; I’m no Pollyanna. I do believe we are in big trouble — what Bill McKibben calls “our almost-but-not-quite-finally-hopeless predicament.” I especially believe in the “not-quite-finally-hopeless” part.

I believe Vermont has what it takes to bring hope to the predicament we’re in.

Vermont has some rare and vital qualities that are so close to us we might not have given them notice. As we have developed our villages and our downtowns, Vermont has managed to keep its farmland, to protect its aquifers, wetlands and fens, its forests, its wildlife habitats, its fresh air — and we have maintained the beauty and integrity of the Vermont landscape. That beauty feeds the souls of our well-informed, civic-minded residents who understand the value of neighborly responsibility and respect the limits of a finite planet. Sometimes we become more aware of these smart-growth successes when we leave the state for a short while and then return to happily rediscover what we previously had taken for granted.

It is commendable that we’ve found a way to grow our economy while maintaining the health of our environment, but Vermont is not an island. We are not immune to the woes of the world. Like so many Americans, we wish for climate and energy solutions and for help with job creation from our elected state and federal officials. Despite the efforts of Vermont’s excellent congressional delegation, we bemoan the gridlock in Washington. But Vermonters are bringing hope to our predicament. Vermonters are taking action — putting their good ideas to work on the ground, if not into policy — as we have been for more than a generation.

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Fifty years ago Vermont was just opening its arms to the world with the arrival of electricity, television and the Interstate. With these innovations there came a surge of careless growth that polluted rivers and ate up valuable ecosystems, farmland and forested lands. We had no environmental regulation, no planning bylaws, no clean air or water standards to guide the growth. We had no environmental advocacy groups.

But Vermonters rallied. In 1963, a small group of thoughtful people organized to form a conference on natural resources protection at Goddard College. The meeting resulted in the founding of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. This first-in-Vermont, statewide environmental advocacy group quickly organized to activate, to educate and to help generate the nation’s leading land-use and environmental laws: Act 250, Act 200, the billboard ban, the bottle bill, Vermont water-quality standards, the smart-growth principles codified in the growth-center bill, the energy-efficiency utility, the Groundwater Protection Act — all of them were either conceived of, researched by or advocated widely at one time or another (sometimes for a long time) by the VNRC.

With the help of the early members of VNRC’s board and staff, environmental advocacy became part of the DNA of Vermont as the organization incubated many of the state’s emerging environmental groups and their leaders. Vermont is now the go-to state to learn about progressive land use planning techniques, ecological economics and energy efficiency, we are the early adopters of programs such as PACE, and feed-in tariffs to jump-start clean energy alternatives for Vermonters.

Lacking federal assistance or incentives, many of these innovations are taking root one volunteer at a time in communities across the Green Mountain State. In an age of globalization, Vermont, ironically, is leading a movement toward localization. Local, caring communities are the foundations upon which the policies of tomorrow are being established today.

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There are now more than 100 active town energy committees in Vermont, creating jobs and reducing energy demands. We boast a booming diversified local agricultural economy, with products sold around the world. Vermont is among the first in the nation to adopt a new measure of success with an index called the GPI, the Genuine Progress Indicator. Our forests and wildlife habitats are, by and large, staying whole and healthy because communities are planning smartly to protect them.

This work is not a sprint, not even a marathon, but it is a relay race that spans the generations. What we have been building over the decades in Vermont, with vision and persistence, looks like a pretty good idea. And in this modern world of interconnectedness, good ideas travel fast. We have demonstrated that we have the capacity to make a difference and we can muster it again.

I believe that if we continue to lead, others will follow our example, and bring hope to our global predicament as we all learn to live sustainably on this beautiful, finite planet.